I was wondering what tactic/approach developed during WWI would you all consider the most revolutionary. Excluding trench warfare.
When you think at the start of the war the British were attacking the Germans on horseback, and by the end of the war the cavalry regiments were driving tanks all in four years, that gives you some idea of the advance in warfare during those years. Trench warfare was not a tactic, it was the result of a stalemate, in some places no-mans land was a hundred yards, in other places in was 20 yds. The machine gun also played a big part, hundreds of thousands lost their lives to it.
Trench warfare was hundreds of years old by 1914. Look up Vauban. Machine-guns were ACW technology. Off the top of my head the Great War warfare which were revolutionary were Aeroplanes, Armoured vechicles, Gas war, Very Lights (night illumination), and wireless communications.
WWI gave rise to some of the first widespread uses of chemical weapons. People think nukes and IED's and machine guns are scary, but no, you know what's really scary? Gas that can immobilize entire platoons and leave them suffocating and in terrible pain without ever putting boots on the ground. That technology was so scary that the world agreed to never wage war that way again, and we mostly haven't.
About the wireless communication: The most advanced form of communication was through telephone, but those field telephones often didn't work well. I think, the most revolutionair thing in World War 1 was air-warfare. This evolved later in world war 2, where air domination and support was really important. Air-bombing and air-recon was invented, two things which were used a lot since then.
A lot of people don't realize how awful that part of the wars was. In WWI, for the first time basically ever, your city could be attacked at any moment without soldiers ever having to be there. Entire blocks could be wiped out in the blink of an eye.
I also forgot about the Gas-part. Imagine what would've happened if the military decided to let loose mustard gas on whole cities.
The Depth Charges caused the sinking of many U-boats, that started in (circa) '15. Medics of the military field/mobile hospitals experienced first time for their mobile x-ray units. British Mark 1 first introduced in Somme, circa '16. HMS Furious been the 1st aircraft carrier. And the utilisation of formidable Flammenwerfer/Flamethrower, been used widely in the Western Front by the Stormtrooper units.
I think that the Air war is the revolutionary part of WWI warfare. Airplanes now made it so you didn't have to have superiority of the ground to hit enemy factories or towns, and the air war would be almost a second war that made each war much larger. Recon planes also allowed you to have a bird's eye view of the battlefield, which was seldom done before.
Oops. Sorry to dampen things just a tad. Aerial bombing and surveylence was being done by balloon in the civil war. Sometimes we have to dot the i's a little better like the wright brothers " first in flight" thing. They weren't first in flight, nor was it the first mechanized flight. It was the first controlled mechanized flight. But, that being said, I do definitly agree about how the entrance of aviation into the theater of war changed everything as the students of war knew it.
Howdy CC! Haven't met you before even though you've been here for a while! Anywho, I guess you and Aghart would agree then. I will still stick to the aviation thing though. The Romans had a kind of "push along" type of thing that was kind of a precursor to the tank. A rolling wall of sorts. I will have to look up the real name for the thing though. I'll get back to you on that. I was a door gunner in the Nam and I have always wanted to ask but keep forgetting. How loud is it inside of those buggy's like the M1 or Sherman? It echos in the shower so I can't imagine what it would be like in a tank.
Ya it was pretty loud but being in a wheeled unit was alot quieter than being in a tracked one thats for sure, lol.
I haven't done a lot of study on tanks. My baliwick lies with the choppers and I know how noisy they can get. I still have a lot of ear damage. I have been up close to a couple of WWII tanks (Sherman I think) but other than seeing pictures of the WWI stuff I have never been up close and personal. Between WWI and WWII there's only about 25 or so years in between so what would you say is the biggest difference in tanks of the two eras? Room, arty, power?
Armoured vehicles in general advanced significantly between the two wars, IMO. The general designs of tanks changed vastly, using rotating turrets, slanted armour, even using FLAK guns for anti tank guns. The motors were more powerful allowing the tanks to reach higher speeds with the added armour protection that was added to them . The guns themselves were completely redesigned using rifled barrels for better accuracy at longer ranges with better optics to see the targets. Suspensions were upgraded to make the ride a little smoother and the beginnings of vertical stabilizers were also seen by the end of WW2. We could even say that the Abrams and Leopard tanks used today by Canadian and American forces are loosely based on the Tiger 2 in my opinion. Then you could bring in the armoured anti tank guns and AAA just to show the beginnings of specialized armoured units.
